Rendy's Battle Report 01: The Festive Fest Units Festival

Obey the tier list! Obey the tier list! Obey the tier list!

First of all, this post is way belated than planned since I'm still on a job search at the moment, among others. Thankfully, I managed to snag an interview last Thursday. Hopefully I can get employed because that's what all matters for me now.

Realizing that I've been more active than ever in The King of Fighters ALL STAR, I've decided that I'll be making some sort of random recaps of my progress in the same vein as my car skinning progresses. Playing this game for about more than 100 days realized that I'm on my phase where I've become grown with the KOF universe, and ALL STAR has cemented that. The scavenger hunt for KD-0079 origins and getting into the rabbit's hole has really helped, and it seems that my new gaming pattern has been shaped yet again after being broken during my first discovery.

December has become a month of a wild ride for the Global version of ALL STAR with so many banners dropping that it's probably impossible to juggle between them, even after the Tekken 7 collaboration has ended. The Christmas update (uh... the Winter Holiday update) brought a couple of KOF fighters dressed in Christmas festivities including the gameplay debut of Whip, the Ikari Squad member with a fighting style that can whip anything on her path (except Llama's buns, mind you), dressed in the Christmas costume. Interestingly, this isn't the first time the costumed version of KOF fighters debuted earlier than their original versions; Angel and Kula Diamond made their formal debut in the Halloween update months back. Bonus points for the fact that both of them plus Whip come from the series' NESTS saga and actually originate from the cloning cartel as well.

But the takeaway is that there are much better banners that dropped in conjunction with the Christmas fighters. Yes, Netmarble thinks that dropping both Orochi New Face and Pretty Fighters banners, containing some of the top tier fighters, is a good idea that they can see themselves getting all the stonks. And if that's not enough, the Orochi (as in, the "KOF 97 Final Boss Orochi") actually descended along with the New Year and Summer banners. Netmarble actually ended the decade with an amazing festivity where up to five purple-bordered fighters can be obtained by the way of gacha, assuming that their luck don't work out that one can eventually spend mountains of rubies.

THE NEW FACE AWAKENS

The Orochi trio, the beginning that precedes the month's madness (Image: Netmarble)

In The King of Fighters '97, three musicians who formed a band together entered the tournament. The three musicians in question are guitarist Yashiro Nanakase, charming French keyboardist Shermie, and young Swedish drummer Chris entered altogether as the New Face Team, taking the invitation from the American Sports Team who competed in '94. They enter the tournament to get revenge on Iori Yagami who overshadowed the band's performance, canceling their gig. However, towards the conclusion of the tournament, their hidden powers awakened; the three are actually part of the Orochi clan, specifically the Hakesshu (The Four Heavenly Kings). Fast forward to 2019, one Dried Earth, one Violent Lightning, and one Destined Flame all gather to break the ALL STAR in style, with a dedicated banner for fighter summons, Battle Card summons and promoted packages. The unique part of their promotion is that they have their own Novice Time Attack event and a chance to guarantee any of the three for as much as 5000 Rubies during the event's period.

Having played the three of them in the Time Attack, I feel like Orochi Chris and Orochi Shermie are the best out of the trio in their own right. I feel like Orochi Shermie is the Time Attack-type fighter with a fast Power Gain rate provided that you have '97 Shermie as her striker, whereas Orochi Chris does better with crowd controls and a cooldown decrease with '97 Chris as striker which can allow him to spam skills faster. Though I have to say I feel more comfortable with Orochi Shermie's Ultimate skills, especially her Ankoku Raikouken. Orochi Chris on the other hand is geared towards crowd control since his first ultimate has him going back and forth. Orochi Yashiro isn't the type of guy you'd like to beat the records with, although his active skills (comprising of mostly, if not all, grabs) pack quite a punch and you can endlessly throw people with him. All three are the best in their own right.

Me after countless of tries and hours of watching Time Attack tutorials...

Unfortunately, none of them ended up in my collection, even the Holiday Boxes I get from the Novice Time Trials mostly comprised of Item Summon Tickets. As much as I couldn't able to get any of the three, I actually secured Orochi Chris' Ultimate Card which should make up for a future investment in case they return once more. In fact, out of all the Battle Card draws, I actually drew Orochi Chris' Ultimate Card three times. Getting the 5000 Rubies pack would be a good investment but such an urge died with rumors of the Orochi himself coming to Global, more of that below. Alas, the Orochi Trio will definitely return in another form. Perhaps the purple debris event that happened in the Japanese version can be done on Global as well? Imagine picking between the three via the selector along with Orochi Iori, Omega Rugal, and Krizalid in Global version... (actually I want Orochi Chris here)

THE PRETTY LADIES

They're pretty, they're pretty strong, and they're pretty much Rule 63. Meet the Pretty Fighters! (Image: Netmarble)

I'm kinda confused as why the game didn't go with the "Pretty Ladies" wording and instead go back and forth between "Lady Fighters" and "Ladylike Ladies" (Uhh... Really?), and with that I'm kinda worried with the game's wording/vocabulary department. Apart from that, these gender-bent fighters really landed within the Christmas update of the game, even featuring its own Rush/Score event.

Female versions of Chang Koehan, Yashiro Nanakase, and Billy Kane appeared one week after the Orochi Trio banner's release. The unique part of this is that Pretty Chang is the only purple-bordered ALL STAR fighter to exist at the time of this post (or we can simply say the FES unit), while the rest are gold-borders. That said, Pretty Chang's gacha rate stood at 0.3% while the rest were exactly 1%, making it a challenge for those who were rolling simply for Pretty Chang alone. Their Ultimate Cards are also exclusively tailored for them, meaning that existing Ultimate Cards for Chang, Yashiro, and Billy can't be used, and three of them have the same rate of 0.6%.

These girls don't have a Time Attack event of their own, let alone being featured in a Novice Time Attack, but unlike the Orochi Trio there's one occasion where you'd play as any of the three in the special event, which is actually a hybrid between Score and Rush events. The event structure consists of Normal and Hard difficulties designed for Score collecting to obtain rewards (just like the King event during the game's first release), in addition to the SP difficulty accessible a week later designed for collecting Stein Coins, the event's exclusive currency, to be exchanged with some of the cool items. All levels consist of two prologue stages, 4 stages plus one EX (read: Time Attack-based) stage for Pretty Chang, Pretty Yashiro, and Pretty Billy chapters (as well as an opportunity to play as them in the Easy difficulty), and three more EX stages where you fight all three Pretty fighters in separate occasions. The bonus fighter rules do not differ between Score and Coins, though if you stumbled upon Nemuless' gameplay vid of the same event in Japanese version, you'll notice that '97 Billy Kane, Halloween Yashiro Nanakase, and '96 Chang Koehan are absent in the bonus line-up, as well as a couple of Battle Cards dedicated for the event.

Oh look, the Battle Card Summon lady is dropping by!

But how these fighters turned female, you ask? Well, the blame is on the cat-like robot named Stein, first seen in Global during the Tekken collaboration event. Noah and Ryugo discovered a robot they've never used in a long time, of which Ryugo activated it and made the robot obsessed about finding its master. Noah and Ryugo turned out to be mean to Stein, making it run away from both. It isn't until its encounter with Kaya that it decided to break himself and somehow turned the world full of robots of its kind, trapping Chang, Yashiro, and Billy in process while their respective friends are looking. The trapped fighters found Stein and begged to be free from this world, of which they've got what they wanted with a twist: a female version of them exist in the player's world, and after a series of fights it was revealed that the original fighters appeared right before their Pretty counterparts, with Stein running away from the incoming trouble it'd get for making such a confusion. This is also the first time the woman from the Battle Card Summon get involved in a storyline, revealing her motive that she's here "to observe, and observe only."

A short playthrough as these Pretty Fighters had me unsurprisingly going for Pretty Chang, whose specialty is mashing with the big iron ball just like Chang Koehan, only with a touch of Super Armor. Combine that with the fact that she's a defense-type fighter and is shorter than most of the fighters, allowing for shorter hurt box and faster recovery, beating her in Arena, League, or even Tournament can be a chore for some. Pretty Billy was also okay with attacks that can reach longer range than most fighters plus burn damage, not to mention she can go airborne with one of her active skills. Lastly, Pretty Yashiro does have hard-hitting punches, although less grab-oriented than the original Yashiro.

From the free tickets obtained via event's exchange shop, only Pretty Billy who ended up in my collection, but the Battle Card summon netted me Pretty Yashiro's Ultimate Skill, again from the free tickets bought in the same shop. Given the next banner I will be reviewing, the free tickets were the only method that I use for the Pretty Fighters banner. Again, a tough luck on my part for not getting Pretty Chang, but then again not everyone is blessed with getting the 0.3%, not even at the first try to an extent. Case in point, me getting Goenitz months ago.

THE GAIA'S WILL: OROCHI

"From a broken cocoon, the butterfly dances away." -Orochi (Image: Netmarble)

And as the rumors became reality, the '97 Orochi has finally awakened to the Global version of KOF ALL STAR, in a two-week banner with 0.3% chance of getting one of the series' notorious bosses. It's crazy that Orochi comes in conjunction with the ongoing Pretty Fighters line and the New Year + Summer banners which replaced the Christmas banners, with five fighters each dressing up in New Year's Eve and Summer costumes. As of December, the fighter was pretty much a top tier contender alongside Pretty Chang along with fighters which are available in Japanese server but not yet landed in Global.

Orochi himself awakened during the conclusion of The King of Fighters '97 after the defeat of the Orochi-awakened New Face team. Chris is the human host for the celestial being, with both Orochi Yashiro and Orochi Shermie sacrificing themselves to awake what could be considered as the hardest boss in the KOF history. Now, imagine yourself making far enough in the game, facing this boss, and realize that the celestial being stops at nothing to throw a variety of attacks on you, from a Genocide Cutter-like upwards attack, to an area-based attack in the same vein as Goenitz's Yo no Kaze, and a non-projectile shoot that can travel to the end of the arena.

Orochi's gameplay needs a couple of tries to get used to, as the character occasionally appears in Novice Time Attack unlike the Orochi Trio. Orochi's first skill (dubbed Ho no Susori; en: Rinse of Fire) works exactly the same way as Goenitz's Yo no Kaze, this time with burn damage instead of bleed, requiring you to be considerate to target a swarm of enemies upon using. Harae (en: Exorcism) , as the second skill, has Orochi shoot a white light shrouded with void rift with the attack travels through the attack's direction, assuring a multiple hit. Third skill, dubbed Utsushiwai (en: Projecting Celebration) teleports Orochi to the nearest opponent and generates an energy shield, but this one can be tricky since at times this doesn't work well if your opponent(s) are a tad close to you so, like Ho no Susori, distancing is the safest option. Finisher Ukei (en: Acceptance) has Orochi perform a Genocide Cutter-like attack that, interestingly, connects to an airborne version of Utsushiwai when the attack lands, and the Special Battle Card is none other than Oomiwa (en: Great Survey), in which Orochi takes the target's life force(s) and bask them upon Orochi's light, inflicting the damage. Other than that, the fighter also has HP recovery core passive, among others. Pair the hard-hitting attacks with such a core passive, and you get yourselves a top tier fighter to flex with. (Attack translations courtesy of SNK Wiki)

Nothing to see here, just a gacha salt anger management class, Orochi chapter.

Eventually, this is where my 4700+ Rubies eventually landed in an attempt to get one of the fighters of the highest tier in the game. First couple of multiple summons were a fad but had an unexpected result, in a good way: '98 Kyo, '94 and '98 King (of which the former turns out to be one of the best in the normal line-up), and '94 Ralf Jones, as well as the '94 Choi Bounge which ended me completing multiple Original Team Collections. My attempt resumed after getting about 3800+ Rubies on the final day of the Orochi banner, and unfortunately not even the celestial being ended up in my collection, although to be fair I didn't came home empty-handed with '99 Benimaru Nikaido in one of my summons. Outside the gacha, Novice Time Attack is basically the only way for me to get used with Orochi, and fighting against the character in Arena, League, and even Tournament modes is a struggle in itself.

At the end of the day, the 0.3% hasn't choose me for the time being. My FES unit count still stands at one, but even with that I can survive fine with Paul Phoenix I've got from the Tekken collab roulette. The trusted hard-hitter does have elemental advantage against Orochi Chris and Pretty Chang, and not even the sought-after banner fighters featured here are of the red element which could spell a disadvantage for Paul. Unlike Paul though we could expect any of these banners to reappear in the future so of course we'll have to wait longer for them again.

As of this post, the next set of banners have already landed; Krizalid takes his turn at the FES summon with the original Whip obtainable in a roulette a la Paul Phoenix, the first time we see a fighter debuted in AS version appear in original form (not counting Orochi Leona, the Orochi-awakened Leona Heidern), leaving Kula Diamond, Leona, and Angel remaining. The Wonderland-themed event is also in the running with three fighters obtainable via gacha and an additional one from a Super Mission, but not for long. With more banners already landed and a couple more is coming soon, I'll have to put this one out for the next post in the series...

~[R]